Why rename Sonar?  It has instant recognition.  Sorry, BandLab sounds like a free iphone app to me, a bit cheesy.  To American ears, it sounds like Blah-blab.
 
The name "Cakewalk" can go.  That's something fancy ladies did in the 19th Century--walk around trying cakes for the town baking competition--US and British culture.
 
Pro-Tools wisely chose a name that sounded like you must have it if you are a serious pro.  There is much in a name.
 
Just marketing advice to my new overlords.
 
More advice:  Use a vampire BAT emitting Sonar as your logo.  That would be cool.  If you take my suggestion, I want free updates forever, please.

Yay!

The market is the millions of people running iThings.  iPads are where many of the younger folks are discovering music for the first time.
 
Even if BandLab lost money producing a Mac version of a DAW, it could be a marketing win for them if those users could be enticed to step up from a mobile gadget to a desktop DAW.  They might be considering Garage Band or Logic on the Mac, before even thinking about Windows.  Why not give them another choice?
 
Besides, most Windows-only DAWs seem to be stuck with the perception by outsiders as hobbyist only tools.  Cross-platform is a measure of pro credibility (to non-Sonar users).  I don't use a Mac, but I was disappointed in the failed attempt to port Sonar to Mac.  I considered that a worthwhile project, that could have have expanded the exposure, as well as the usefulness of the tool that we all know and love!

Saxon1066
 
The name "Cakewalk" can go.  That's something fancy ladies did in the 19th Century--walk around trying cakes for the town baking competition--US and British culture.
 

It was from plantation workers dancing to win a cake

cparmerlee

Kamikaze
Are you saying that you think that after crossgrading, you believe the product you have will no longer work after a period of time, say one year?

That depends on what you mean by "work".  If you are able to freeze the OS environment (say by using a virtual machine) and you don't care if any new devices or plug-ins work in the future, then the first Bandlab release should be able to work indefinitely.  But of course, you don't need Bandlab for that.  You have exactly the same situation today with SPLAT.
 
If you are expecting perpetual support and patches for free, I'm not sure that is what the gentleman meant to imply.  And frankly I would be very suspicious of any company promising that.  They need a business model that will work for them.  To Mr. Meng's credit, clearly he sees value in the existing user base and apparently is prepared to be generous in order to keep that base active.  I think that is wise.  What he may want to do beyond that is something we could speculate on, but I don't think it is good to attack others here who might be a bit more circumspect than you are.
 
Personally, I am quite interested in this new direction.  The world doesn't need yet another DAW.  A business model only makes sense to me if the "Bandlab DAW" evolves to embrace new market segments or categories.  This is what Ableton did with live performance and it was a good move for them.  Reading between the lines, it appears to me the vision for Bandlab might be to extend the DAW to make it more of a "songwriter's platform" so to speak, rather than a general purpose DAW.  That is the focus of some of the existing Bandlab assets, and one can easily see a synergy between those assets and a "back end DAW".  But I am just speculating.  I'm not making any purchase decisions based on such guesswork.  It will all be revealed in due course.  It could be very exciting, but not exactly what you and others have in mind, if you are just looking for the continuation of the "basic DAW" in the Cakewalk tradition.

I think you have my post wrong then with this post
http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3735148
 
A perpetual License doesn't grant perpetual support. It just means you get to use the product perpetually the initial Support Period, typically one year.
 
 
 

Kamikaze
 
It was from plantation workers dancing to win a cake

Even more reason to dump it.

Kamikaze

Saxon1066
 
The name "Cakewalk" can go.  That's something fancy ladies did in the 19th Century--walk around trying cakes for the town baking competition--US and British culture.
 

It was from plantation workers dancing to win a cake

While the term is from the south and timeframe is the  mid 1800's, The meaning does not signify anything to do with a place (residence, work or otherwise) (as I am hoping your allusion references). It is however, related to a ritual or a march or an event where the couple with the most stylish, intricate steps/movements were awarded with a cake. Your summary was however..... interesting.

Starting back a few pages ago ( before the annoying off topic)  this was mentioned and I've also read it in a few other threads scattered across this forum.
People are assuming that " The new DAW"  will be a continuation of Sonar. In other words the next Sonar Platinum  update.
I think they have made this very clear that this will not be the situation at all.  
X3e was the last of the "old way" Sonar was updated. A new number meant you had to pay, adding a letter was a free upgrade.    Since x3 we changed to rolling updates and you paid once a year to stay up to date.  all 4 versions of Sonar were constantly updated with new code that overwrites your currant version. You can keep the old versions for roll backs.  
November was the end of the line for this. So call it X4 instead of Splat and now we have what would have been X5 under the new owners. 
 
A totally new DAW running on Sonars code. 
What remains of that code can only be pure speculation but Noels comment was a great teaser and he seems to think we will all be pleased. Out of the last 5 pages that was the only comment worth reading and certainly cheered me up.  And the fact that this first release will be free to all of us is more great news. In the old days it would be the same as Cakewalk releasing X5 and saying it's free just because we like you. 
 

Of course, in the modern vernacular, "cakewalk" is associated with something trivial or easy. It was that way in the 80's too - so IIRC, when that particular MIDI sequencer by 12 Tone Systems was given that name, it was to denote ease-of-use. But to the uninitiated, the name also connotes something trivial or unimportant. IMO, imagining myself in their shoes, that's the stronger connotation, so the name really should be dropped.

Cactus Music
Certainly as noted there are many Cakewalk users out there who are oblivious to what has happened. I'd say the majority of software users never join forums. 
And please you folks who are still paranoid?? Why? And the folks making demands as lifetime purchasers?? I guess some people just don't "get it" no matter how many time this is explained. 
 
One question I do have is what will become of Command Center? We can certainly live without it but it does make new installs go smoother than using manual. I guess it will live on sans any updates. 

What is there not 'to get' when expecting to receive a package I paid for, just as anyone else's package. To deny a platinum lifetime the updates they paid for will actually make it worse on them than anyone else.
Whatever version you paid for, you expect to retain 100% of that package. Lifetime updates were part of the 100% of the package that was included in that version.
So because lifetime update purchasers chose to go balls out on their purchase...for some reason you think they don't deserve the same 100% of their package, as anyone else?!?!
L.U. purchasers jumped on the front of the wagon, but they're to be the only ones who actually get less than what they paid for?!?!

Just my two synths...